Speaking with German publication PC Games.de (site is in German, but video interview is in English), when quizzed on the possibility of cross-platform play in the recently announced Counter-strike: Global Offensive, Valve Software's Gabe Newell replied that it is something that they want to do.

That's certainly our goal. We never want to create these islands of players. You have to be sensitive to control differences and make sure you're accommodating that, but our view is players should be able to play as part of a community on whatever device they can. Sometimes there are contractual or other issues that make that hard; where somebody -- a platform holder -- doesn't want you to do that for whatever reason, but that's always our preference; is to let customers play and be part of the larger community.

While it stops short of confirming cross-platform gaming for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, it is at least heartening to know that it is something they want to offer and also stokes our suspicions that it has long been the console manufacturers standing in the way of that option and not the game developers.

Valve's Portal 2 supports cross-platform play between PC, Mac and PS3 users, but the Xbox 360 version remains fenced off from both still. However Portal 2 is a co-operative game, so having a keyboard/mouse player in the same game as a control-pad player isn't a big issue (although, id Software disagree and recently stated that as the reason for no cross-platform co-op play in RAGE).

With consoles having now become the most successful platform for first person shooters, are console manufacturers still worried about the negative impacts of mixing players with different controllers? Surely a three-way solution could still have some servers configured to only allow PS3 players or only allow Xbox 360 players if that was their desire, but c'mon, let those of us that want to play together do so guys!

FPS games have to be dumbed-down to be playable on console, so to make it fair the PC version would have to be a console port without any real ability to aim with your mouse or anything like that. Once you take that out, what's the point?
Sure, you have made millions on a 'successful' game, but your game is a bit boring for real gamers.

I'll be happy to play a "dumbed-down" version of CS to play with my mates who use console. like valve said, it's not replacing 1.6 or source. i wouldn't have a problem if console got the slight auto aim to try and counter the the competition with mouse. kudos to them for actually trying to get it to work.

Valve aren't total idiots - let's not forget they're one of the only PC developers doing The Right Stuff these days when it comes to PC multiplayer.

I don't think they'll cripple the core PC experience just to make sure console noobs aren't savaged. I personally would like to see this as a server-specific setting so the community can decide after experimenting.

I personally would LOVE to have PC gamers and console players playing on the same server with no alterations in the gameplay experience on either side so it can finally be qualitatively shown that console gamers are no match for PC gamers under any circumstances. However, I'd also like to see console-only servers and maybe even "console vs crippled PC" or something.

Valve have a long strong history of dedicated server control being in the hands of the user. That flexibility is one of the reasons CS was so popular in competitive play so hopefully they'll stay true to their roots here.

Honestly if valve want to release games on consoles this doesn't bother me in the slightest. When Valve makes a game that gets released on consoles, it's always worked back from the PC version. They are about the only company that does this and it shows in how good their stuff is.